How was the Northwest Angle in MN created and why?

Question

The northwest angle is part of MN which can only be reached by road by going through Canada.

Answer 1

There's a bit more contextual information about this than you can get from the Wikipedia entry. As the other answers have already indicated, the 1783 Treaty of Paris said the boundary should run from Lake Superior to Long Lake to the northwest corner of Lake of the Woods, then west to the Mississippi.

That was based on a bad map and a limited understanding of the geography of the area; Long Lake was nonexistent, and the Mississippi is south of Lake of the Woods rather than west.

The 1787 Northwest Ordinance defined the Northwest Territory as running directly north from the Mississippi (near its source at Lake Itasca) to the northwest corner of Lake of the Woods.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase indirectly affected what happened later. The Louisiana Territory was understood to include the Mississippi watershed west of the Mississippi. As it turned out, part of the Missouri watershed (in the Dakotas and eastern Montana) extends north of the eventual border at the 49th parallel, and in the area we're concerned with -- northern Minnesota -- water drained north toward Lake Winnipeg, so it was not part of Louisiana, but was British territory known as Prince Rupert's Land, and controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company.

The Treaty of Ghent (1814) that ended the War of 1812 directed surveyors to determine the latitude and longitude of the northwest corner of Lake of the Woods, and to determine the international boundary to that point. Surveyors found five possible points where the northwest corner might be located, and they never did finish the boundary survey, in part because Long Lake doesn't exist.

The 1818 treaty between the U.S. and Britain took the boundary definition a bit farther. They decided exactly where the northwest corner of Lake of the Woods was; this definitively established the location of the point of the Northwest Angle. They also said the boundary runs south from that point to the 49th parallel, thence west to the Rocky Mountains. This transferred the area of Prince Rupert's Land south of the 49th parallel to the United States (north central Minnesota), and the portion of the Mississippi watershed north of the 49th parallel to Britain/Canada (Manitoba & Saskatchewan).

Still to be determined was the route of the international border from Lake Superior to the Northwest Angle. The British argued for the line of the St. Louis and Vermillion Rivers north from Duluth, while the Americans countered with the Kaministikwia River, well to the east.

The compromise between the two was the Pigeon and Rainy Rivers, which now comprises the international boundary between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods. This was finalized in the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, better known for defining the Canadian border with Maine. Lord Ashburton didn't much care where the border was, since he considered the Lake Superior region to be worthless; Daniel Webster, on the other hand, wanted the border to be as far to the north and east as possible.

The result of this boundary settlement was that when iron ore was discovered in the Mesabi Range near Hibbing, it was American ore rather than Canadian; had the border run north from Duluth, the Mesabi Range would've been in Canada.

So that's some more detail on the history, geography, and politics of the Northwest Angle. Quite interesting, I think.

Answer 2

The Treaty of Paris (1783), concluded between the United States and Great Britain at the end of the American Revolutionary War, stated that the boundary between U.S. territory and the British possessions to the north would run "…through the Lake of the Woods to the most northwesternmost point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi…" The parties did not suspect that the source of the Mississippi, Lake Itasca, was south of that point. A factor in this mistake was the use of the Mitchell Map during the treaty negotiations. Consequently the Northwest Angle is the result of 18th-century ignorance of geography. In the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the error was corrected by having the boundary run due south from the northwest point of the lake to the 49th parallel and then westward along it. When this north-south line was surveyed, it was found to intersect other bays of the lake and therefore cut off a portion of U.S. territory, now known as the Northwest Angle.

Answer 3

The Northwest Angle is the result of 18th-century ignorance of geography.

The Treaty of Paris between the US and Britain at the end of the American Revolution, stated that the boundary between U.S. territory and the British possessions to the north would run "…through the Lake of the Woods to the most northwesternmost point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi…" No one knew that the source of the Mississippi, Lake Itasca, was actually south of that point. In the Convention of 1818, the error was corrected by having the boundary run due south from the northwest point of the lake to the 49th parallel and then westward along it. When this north-south line was surveyed, it was found to intersect other bays of the lake and therefore cut off a portion of U.S. territory, now known as the Northwest Angle.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_angle#Origin


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Answer 4

What you overlook is that it is not just Whites who want to separate away from the main country. In the Southwest the Mexican immigrants have long been talking of secession and creating their own Hispanic nation "Aztlan." There has also been talk of a black "Nation within a nation" by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) so this is nothing new. And in any case in the same way that the Soviet Union broke apart some years ago, because it was an empire, not a single Nation, America has also become a multi-racial empire of different nations all forced-living together. Tensions are rising so it will also break apart, because all empires eventually break up....